GALT..TSCN..NDB (do we hear a +10 for today?)
TSCN.. trading at 92% of day high, at 136% of 30 day average volume, another longer term hold. In since 7 has done exceedingly well. I usually get stocks of companies that I have a business relationship with, or utilize their products very successfully (INTU, EFII, ADBE, MACR etc).. TSCN is one such company.
GALT holding this for a very long time, but still trade this one. very partial to it, trigger a buy signal and is trading at day's high.
raised to accumulate on June 21st. I do not own the mutual fund below nor am I going to prognosticate the earth, moon and stars.. What I will say however that I have had good fortune with the very high tech Israeli stocks,and yes, they are some of my favorites (CMVT,ECILF, EFII, CHKP, etc.) and if they do in the future as they have done in the past, you could do well.
Friday June 25, 3:44 pm Eastern Time
New Israeli stock fund mirrors index
By Steven Scheer
NEW YORK, June 25 (Reuters) - Investors who are looking to buy a stake in Israel now have an alternative to the traditional state bonds with a new mutual fund tied to the top Israeli stocks.
The AMIDEX35 Mutual Fund from TransNations Investments LLC launched this week invests in companies in the new AMIDEX35 Index, which is comprised of the 35 largest Israeli companies that trade on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange. It is the first fund of its kind.
''Americans want to invest in Israel because their grandfather used to tell them they bought State of Israel bonds, but bonds are old fashioned. People are now saying, 'I want to invest in Israel and make money,''' the fund's manager Boaz Rahav told Reuters.
State of Israel bonds, which for 50 years have been used to help build and strengthen Israel's economy and infrastructure, return up to 7 percent.
The new fund, which requires a minimum investment of $10,000 for regular accounts and $2,000 for retirement and custodial accounts for minors, opens more of Israel's equity markets to U.S. investors. The fund will likely be capped at around $300 million, Rahav said.
For Americans, investing directly in Israel's stock market has been difficult -- unless a company's American Depository Receipts (ADRS) traded here.
Many brokers shied away from Israeli equities due to problems getting timely quotes, although the Tel Aviv exchange recently moved to a computerized trading system. Other concerns are over currency, taxes and liquidity issues.
As a result, investors have missed out on the Israeli stock boom. The Tel Aviv stock indices are up more than 30 percent this year, and touched record highs last week.
Israeli stocks, particularly high-technology issues, have soared, with the blue chip AMIDEX35 up some 31 percent since the beginning of the year, Rahav said. That's only slightly less than the year-to-date returns of 38 percent for the Morgan Stanley Emerging Markets index, and 33 percent for the Lipper Emerging Markets index.
Emerging market investors have some exposure to Israel since it is included in various emerging market indexes.
He noted that Israel owns a special status as a developed Western economy -- with per-capita Gross Domestic Product at $17,000 -- but with characteristics of an emerging economy, such as financial markets that are not fully matured.
Despite the stellar performance of its stocks -- listed both in Israel and in the United States -- most investors are Israeli.
AMIDEX35 Funds Inc. hopes to change that. The fund follows on the heels of the launch of the AMIDEX35 index, which includes the largest Israeli companies trading by market capitalization on the New York and Tel Aviv exchanges. Every Jan. 1, the index will be re-evaluated.
The index is divided between banks, insurance, chemical and holding companies that trade in Israel and high-technology firms that trade in the U.S., and has a total market capitalization of more than $50 billion.
''To concentrate only on Tel Aviv would be a mistake and to concentrate only on America would also be a mistake,'' said Clifford Goldstein, president of Amidex Funds.
The top New York traded shares include hi-tech companies Amdocs Ltd. (NYSE:DOX - news), Comverse Technology Inc. (Nasdaq:CMVT - news), ECI Telecom Ltd. (Nasdaq:ECILF - news), Galileo Technology Ltd. (Nasdaq:GALT - news) and Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq:CHKP - news), Bank Leumi , Bank Hapoalim , First International Bank and telecommunications company Bezeq Israel Telecom make up the largest firms traded in Tel Aviv.
Goldstein said that since more than 100 Israeli companies -- the second most of any foreign country behind Canada -- trade on the U.S. exchanges, the rapid growth of Israeli companies could not be overlooked anymore.
''It's an unexploited market,'' he said of Israeli stocks. ''They don't get enough exposure.'' |
